Through the Valley Love Endures

What if death came for you today? Would you be ready?

Forced to face his own mortality, Eddie Santiago fought to stay alive in a broken world. His incredible journey through heartbreak, abuse, and adversity left him with one truth: every life makes a difference.

This is the true and compelling story of his supernatural quest through the valley of death, doubt, and darkness. Eddie provides a passionate story that will capture the attention of even the toughest skeptics.

Angels, demons, heaven, hell, Jesus and the devil: are they fiction, or are they more real than anything else in the world?

About Eddie David Santiago

Eddie David Santiago has worked in the mental health/substance abuse field since he was 18 years old. He holds bachelor degrees in both psychology and religious studies and has provided counseling related services for multiple mental health, substance abuse and human service agencies. In addition, he earned his master’s degree in counseling along with certification in educational administration.

With over fifteen years of counseling related experience, Eddie founded the organization L.E.A.D. (Love Endures And Delivers) which offers interactive group trainings, seminar sessions, speaking opportunities for groups of all ages and crisis counseling sessions.

THROUGH THE VALLEY, LOVE ENDURES is based on Eddie’s early collection of writings, through which he found his voice. He seeks to inspire others to find their voice and share their own stories.
Eddie resides in the Midwest with his beautiful wife Sarah and their three amazing children, Faith, Isaiah and Makaylah.

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Cinnamon Cranberry Gelatin Jigglers

Ingredients:

• 4 envelopes gelatin (like Knox)
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1 cup 100% CRANBERRY juice
• 2 cups water
• 3 Cinnamon Herbal Tea Bags (I used Good Earth Sweet and Spicy)

Instructions:

1. In a sauce pan heat the cranberry juice and the water until boiling, then remove from heat. Add the tea bags and let the tea steep for a couple minutes.

2. After the tea has steeped f or a minute or two, in a bowl add the apple juice and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let it stand for about a minute.

3. Remove the tea bags from the hot mixture and pour it into the gelatin apple juice mixture. Stir for about 5 minutes, or until the gelatin completely dissolves.

4. Pour into a 9×13 pan and chill for about 3 hours in the refrigerator.

5. If you want to make this healthy treat fun for Valentine’s Day use heart cookie cutters to cut out heart jigglers and serve them up to your family or for a fun healthy touch to your Valentine’s Day party.

This recipe is perfect for those who are trying to be healthy, are following the Paleo diet, and for those who are trying to stay grain or gluten free. The cinnamon cranberry gelatin is tart and has a great fruity-cinnamon flavor.  It isn’t super sweet, but it gets a little sweetness from the juice, and from the cinnamon in the tea. If you want it sweeter you can add a little honey when you combine the hot and cold liquids.

I’m so excited to challenge myself with the mini challenges, to meet new bloggers, and hang out with some fun bloggers I already know! I’m also hoping to get a ton of work done on my blogs! Of course in between baking and decorating a couple cakes I have for an outside writing assignment.

If you want to join in it’s not too late. The Blogathon Bash starts today (Friday January 25th), and runs through Monday January 28th. It’s easy to join, just write your own kick off post (like this one), and link it up here on the kickoff post.

Then after you link up check out the prizes. Oh, did I mention before there are prizes? Fill out the form for which prizes you are interested in. Then you can earn more chances to win the prizes by completing mini challenges.

Don’t forget to join the Facebook group! The link is on the official kick off post on the Blogathon Blog I linked to above. You can also follow along on Twitter, and there are Twitter parties! The hashtag is #Blogathon2.

If you don’t know who Ted Rubin is:

Ted Rubin is the Chief Social Marketing Officer of CollectiveBias a Social Shopper Media Company. He is a leading social marketing strategist and in March 2009 started using and evangelizing the term ROR, Return on Relationship™.

Ted is the most followed CMO on Twitter according to Social Media Marketing Magazine. ROR is the basis of his philosophy…It’s All About Relationships! Connect with Ted… TedRubin.com or @TedRubin

You can find Return On Relationship on Amazon here: Return on Relationship

Here’s a quick synopsis of the book from Amazon:

Social Media drives engagement, engagement drives loyalty, and loyalty correlates directly to increased sales.

Is your company currently focused on gaining brand advocates and building its social media credibility? Do you question whether or not using Facebook, Twitter, or blogs is a worthwhile investment of your time and resources? In Return on Relationship, Ted Rubin and Kathryn Rose present real world, practical ideas that will help businesses maximize their potential through using community-focused tools on the Internet. You’ll discover why ‘That’s the way it’s always been done’ will leave you without any customers.
In this book you will also discover:

• How to Maximize your potential by using the right community-focused tools on the Internet
• The importance of moving from convince and convert to converse and convert
• What main problems will keep you from seeing dramatic results
• How building engaged and responsive communities around your brand will significantly impact your bottom line

Relationships are very important in today’s world. I think Ted has it down. I can’t wait to check out Return On Relationships!

I’m trying to get my husband on board with the lifestyle too. One of his favorite dishes is chili, but he’s never been crazy about the beans. I decided to give my favorite chili recipe a try bean free. It turned out fabulous, so I thought I’d share.

Paleo Friendly Bean Free Crock Pot Chili

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground turkey or hamburger
• 1 jar of tomato juice (I use homemade sauce)
• 1 can or jar of stewed tomatoes
• 1 jar Paleo friendly salsa
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 1 container mini portabello mushroom or button mushrooms sliced
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1-2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)

Directions:
1. Brown the ground turkey and saute it with the chopped onion and minced garlic.
2. Pour the tomato juice, stewed tomatoes, and salsa into the crock pot. I canned some of my own tomatoes and juice this year, so I used those. If you use make own you may want to add a little salt. If you use canned try to find BPA free or glass jars.
3. Add the cooked ground turkey with the onions and garlic, then the sliced mushrooms.
4. Add the cumin, chili powder, and cayenne pepper to taste.
5. Let it simmer on low for a couple hours to blend the flavors.

This recipe got two thumbs up from my husband, and definitely two thumbs up from me. I thought chili had to have beans in it to be good, this definitely proved me wrong! I’ll definitely be making it again.

If you don’t want to brown your meat ahead of time, just add it to the crock pot along with the onion and garlic and let it cook in the chili.

Here are 7 winter garden chores I do to prepare for  the summer gardening season.

1. Pruning- Many fruit trees, bushes, perennials, and shrubs need a good pruning. Check the information on your specific plant for their exact pruning requirements but many of them can be pruned in late winter to prepare them for the next summer’s growth.
2. Map out your garden and landscaping for the summer. Think about what kinds of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers you want to grow in your garden this summer. Create a tentative diagram of what you want to grow, and where. Do you love tomatoes, or green beans? Set aside more space to grow your favorites.
3. Order those seeds. This is my favorite winter gardening chore! I love to browse through the seed catalogs this time of year and dream of my summer garden.
4. Start planting and growing plants you’ll need  indoors, like flowers, tomatoes, cabbage, or peppers. This is a great way to take car of garden fever, and to get something growing!
5. Sharpen your gardening tools. Winter is a great time to sharpen all your garden tools and get them prepared for next summer. While you’re at it make a list of anything you need to repair or replace.
6. Clean up your garden space. If you haven’t cleaned up from last year’s garden now is a great time to do that. You might want to start planting in early spring, and believe it or not that’s only a few weeks away.
7. Apply compost to your garden, or any other fertilizers or soil additives you’d like to work in this spring.

What winter garden chores do you do to help take care of your winter gardening fever, and to prepare for next summer?

Here’s a quick synopsis of the book:

Susan and her family live in New Haven 56. It appears to be a tranquil 1950s styled community to the rest of the world. But monster that lurks inside Susan, and every one of her superficially perfect neighbors, held in check by the oppressive police state that rules over New Haven 56.

Susan happy life is torn apart when her teenage son goes missing the same night an explosion rips apart the community. Susan knows it’s only a matter of time before the police start breaking down their doors.

Before the reconditioning begins and Susan’s identity is lost, she must do one final thing.

Find her son.

At first I was a little worried, there are quite a few characters and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep them straight. They all started to fall into place after the first couple chapters, and I was drawn right into the story. Then I couldn’t put it down!

This is a very unique book, not like anything I’ve ever read before, and I’ve read a ton of books! I love it when I pick up a book and it’s completely unexpected in a good way. I hope there is more to the Glistening Haven story, I’m not ready to be finished with these characters yet!

I would definitely read more by Jill Cooper! I give this book thumbs up all the way around.

Buy Glistening Haven: Kindle (99 cents)/ Paperback

Visit the rest of the tour, and enter to win a $75 Amazon gift card here: Glistening Haven Book Tour

Gerry Hinton thought she had the perfect career as an operative for the Company. Her next assignment should have been another “mission accomplished”, but hell was delivering hand baskets that day.

When a little girl gives a mysterious silver box to Gerry, her world self-destructs. Suddenly under constant mental attacks, the only person who can save her is her partner, Nicky–but nothing comes without a cost. Secrets buried deep in the past begin to rise, threatening everything she holds dear.

If she can’t out run her past, can she save her future?

About Author Olivia Hardin

About the Author – Olivia Hardin realized early on how strange she was to have complete movie-like character dreams as a child. Eventually she began putting those vivid dreams to paper and was rarely without her spiral notebooks full of those mental ramblings. Her forgotten vision of becoming an author was realized when she connected with a group of amazingly talented and fabulous writers who gave her lots of direction and encouragement. With a little extra push from family and friends, she hunkered down to get lost in the words. She’s also an insatiable crafter who only completes about 1 out of 5 projects, a jogger who hates to run, and is sometimes accused of being artistic, though she’s generally too much of a perfectionist to appreciate her own work. A native Texas girl, Olivia lives in the beautiful Lone Star state with her husband and their puppy Bonnie.

Connect with her Online – Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

Witch Way Bends (Book 1 of the Bend-Bite-Shift Trilogy)

Bitten Shame: (Book 2 in the Bend-Bite-Shift Trilogy)

Shifty Business: (Book 3 of the Bend-Bite-Shift Trilogy) (Volume 3)

Tour prizes include $75 Amazon Gift Card, 3 paperbacks, and bookmarks. Fill out the form below to enter Open INT for GC but US for print books and bookmarks.

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/ Nook

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Want to know what’s included in the set?

• 4 DVD Set
• a Bonus 5th DVD – Rush, an energizing 20 minute workout!
• Maraca like Zumba Toning Sticks
• The DVD’s include over 30 different dance styles from around the world, including merengue, salsa, regae, calypso, cumbia, and hip hop.

The system includes several different levels of intensity, that makes it perfect for both beginners and Zumba fitness regulars. Want to know more, or can’t wait to see if you won? You can find the complete set at Amazon here: Zumba Fitness Exhilarate Body Shaping System DVD (Multi, Small)

Are you ready to party yourself into shape?

This giveaway ends on January 15, 2014 at 11:59pm EST. Giveaway is open to U.S. residents, ages 18+. Please enter via the entry form below. Good luck and Happy New Year!

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Peppermint Martini

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Blue Ice Vodka

• 1 oz Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur

• 1/2 oz of Peppermint Liqueur

Directions:

Add all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled martini glass.

Mistletoe Margarita

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz Camarena Silver Tequila
• 1 oz Lime Juice
• 1/2 oz Agave Nectar
• 1/4 oz Gin
• 8 Cranberries

Directions: Muddle cranberries in a mixing glass. Add tequila, lime juice, agave nectar, gin and ice. Shake and strain into a bucket glass with ice. Garnish with a skewer of cranberries.

Coconut Christmas

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 ounces Shellback Silver Rum
• 3/4 ounce White Chocolate Liqueur
• 1/2 ounce Cream of Coconut
• 2 ounces Half & Half
• Shredded Coconut for Garnish

Combine liquids in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake to blend and chill. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with shredded coconut on top.

Mexican Holiday

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz Camarena Reposado Tequila
• 1 1/2 oz Cranberry Juice
• 1/2 oz Spiced Orange Syrup*
• 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
• Cinnamon Stick Garnish

Directions: Combine liquids in rocks glass over fresh ice. Garnish with cinnamon stick to stir.

*Spiced Orange Syrup: Place zest of one orange, 12 cloves, 1 tablespoon Allspice, 3/4 cup Water and 1 1/2 cup Organic Cane Sugar in saucepan over medium heat. Heat until sugar is completely dissolved (approximately 5 minutes). Strain. Discard zest and spices. Refrigerate syrup.

Holiday House Party Punch

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Shellback Spiced Rum
• 3/4 cup Orange Juice
• 3/4 cup Pineapple Juice
• 1/4 cup Lemon Juice
• 1/4 cup Grenadine
• Dash of Classic Bitters
• Maraschino Cherry & Pineapple Slice for Garnish

Directions: Combine all liquids except bitters in a punch bowl with ice and stir. To serve, ladle into stemless wine glasses filled with ice. Top each glass with dash of classic bitters. Garnish with cherry and pineapple.

Camarena Roja

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz Camarena Silver Tequila

• 1 1/2 oz Pinot Noir

• 1/2 Lime Juice

• 1/2 oz Agave Nectar

• 2 oz Grapefruit Soda

Directions:

In a rocks glass, mix all ingredients, except the grapefruit soda. Add ice and top off with grapefruit soda and stir. Garnish with lime wedge.

Please make sure you and your guests drink responsibly. Never drink and drive, or let your party guests drink and drive!